


The Art of Never Letting Go

by rememberednoah



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, Cussing, Depression, Fluff and Angst, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Bad At Titles, M/M, Memes, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:10:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15410637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberednoah/pseuds/rememberednoah
Summary: How was he to move past this? He'd wanted a clean break. He'd wanted to spare himself the heartbreak of losing Shiro or of having him back when it was too late. . . But how was he meant to move on when not long after their separation it was announced that they hadn’t heard any news from the Kerberos crew? That the crew was missing? That there was no scrap of a clue to lead them to where they all might be?ORThe fic where Adam has to face the consequences of his decision to break up with Shiro.





	The Art of Never Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> Some context: This fic starts somewhere before all the paladins go off into space. Not too much before that, but still before Keith and all the other kiddos are officially out of the picture. Additionally, when I say “apartment” I mean, ya know, the place at the Garrison where the teachers share a space with a roommate but still have a room of their own. Also. When I mention a “palm pad” it’s because I’m too lazy to figure out the terms used in Voltron for their technology, so I’m using that as an umbrella term for a tablet-like device that has essentially the same functions as a cell phone and/or a tablet. 
> 
> Trigger warnings (I mentioned them in the tags but just in case): depression and suicidal thoughts 
> 
> For posterity, I'd like to note that this was written before the release of season 7.

_It was hell._

Adam always thought the phrase was an exaggeration. He thought it was a cry for help or attention when people used it, but he was wrong. He knew that now. How did he know? He was living it. The pain that tore through him didn’t feel human. It didn't feel part of this world. It felt like he was finally paying for his sins and being mauled by hell hounds. 

He was gone. Shiro was gone. Takashi was _gone_. He wouldn't be coming back. Not only would he not be returning to Adam’s side, he wouldn’t be coming back to anyone. 

It was all over the news. The change from hopeful, from scrambling for any miniscule sign of the crew of the Kerberos mission, to resigned to never finding them had finally come. Months had gone by since they’d first declared the crew missing. All this time later, there were still no signs of life. There was no more hope to hold on to. So, they made it official. They declared the members of the Kerberos mission dead. 

It was hell. Adam was living through hell. 

There was something so final about hearing it on the news. Of course he wanted to believe they were wrong. Of course he wanted Takashi to be alive. Of course he wanted to believe it all as fiercely as Keith did. . . But where was the proof? Where was the evidence pointing to Shiro being alive? There was none, and Adam wasn’t a teenager like Keith who was full of obstinate hope. He was a grown man and what he had were the news. There were other rational and detached adults saying with finality that it was time to let go of hope. 

The Kerberos mission had failed. It was time to move on. 

Just because Adam knew he had to face the facts it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. On the contrary, Adam wanted to scream. He wanted to break something. He wanted to prove them all wrong. He wanted Takashi back. He wanted to not have a reason to break down. 

He broke down, though, of course he did. 

The pain flowed out of him all at once. His chest heaved with sobs. They were so strong he could hardly breathe. Tears fell from his eyes until they clouded his vision, until his glasses smudged with his fingerprints and his tears, and until he couldn't see at all. His hands shook as they searched for something to hold on to or something to break. A scream tore through him, and he smothered it with the first thing that was within reach. It was one of Takashi's shirts. He wasn’t supposed to be hiding articles of clothing that belonged to the man he had broken up with behind the pillows of the couch, but he wasn’t going to chastise himself now. He could do what he damn well pleased, and what he wanted was to ball up the fabric in his fists and scream into it. The material was barely capable of distorting the sounds leaving his body in a stream, but he didn’t care. 

His mind was busy playing the same thoughts on a loop. _This can’t be happening. This can’t be my life. How could have my worst fear have come true? It wasn’t supposed to be this way._ This was then followed by thoughts of guilt. He didn’t think it was his right to fall apart like this. _He_ had broken things off with Takashi. _He_ had been the one to tell him he couldn't stand by his decision to leave for the Kerberos mission. _He_ had been the one to say he wouldn't be waiting around for Shiro to come back. But it hadn't been that simple. . . It had never been _meant_ to be that simple. 

He'd just wanted to be a part of the conversation. He'd just wanted his feelings to be considered. 

Now it didn't even feel like it fucking mattered. Adam would have given anything to see Shiro one more time. He would have given an arm to hear Takashi's laugh once more. He would have sold his soul to give Shiro one more kiss. He would have died for the chance to call Takashi all the ugly things that were coiling in his stomach and then beg him to come back to him alive. Just to come back _alive_. 

It was too late now. He couldn't take it back. He didn't think he _should_ take it all back. Not all of it. He hadn't been all wrong. Just like Takashi hadn't been all wrong. They'd both just needed to bend a little. Just a little. Maybe if they'd both just caved a little bit, Adam's world wouldn't feel like it was falling apart. 

How was he to move past this? He'd wanted a clean break. He'd wanted to spare himself the heartbreak of losing Shiro or of having him back when it was too late. . . But how was he meant to move on when not long after their separation it was announced that they hadn’t heard any news from the Kerberos crew? That the crew was missing? That there was no scrap of a clue to lead them to where they all might be? 

You didn't break up with the love of your life, with the man you were sure you would marry, and then hear he was missing and take the news calmly. You didn't _move on_ from that. You didn't move on when you hadn't even been able to start not being in love with the man before he disappeared into nothing. 

Adam let the pain take residence in his heart. He wanted it to wreck him. He was sure it was the only way to start moving on. Not that he was thinking about moving on, not really. He was thinking that he still wanted to marry Shiro and now he never could. He was thinking of the future he'd imagined with the man and how it had never been so far out of his reach than at that very moment. He was thinking that he wanted his parents by his side. He was thinking he didn't know what stupid shit he would do if he didn't hear his mother's voice comforting him. 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to see her, but he was certain he needed the familiarity of her voice. With still shaking hands and with half blind eyes, he somehow managed to get a hold of his palm pad and get out a voice call to his mother. Takashi had always teased him for being a mama's boy but, in that moment, he couldn't have given less of a damn. He didn't give a single _fuck_. He was bound to do something he would regret if he didn’t have his mother backing him up, and he wasn’t going to feel bad about that. There was already enough crap bringing him down. 

"Adam?” Her voice came clearly through the device. It was nearly sharp enough and loud enough to make him feel like she was right there with him. Even with how close and comforting it felt, he failed to force out a response. His pain only seemed to have sharpened with her awareness of it. 

“Adam? Adam, are you there?" Her voice was so achingly concerned. She knew exactly why he had called. He hadn’t needed to even get a word out. 

He still tried his best at formulating a response, but all that left his throat was a strangled sob. It sounded like something a wounded animal might have uttered. 

"Adam, sweetheart.” He could hear her sorrow for him in her voice. It was a combination of both pity and concern. It didn’t bother him. It was what he needed. “Talk to me. I need you to say something. Anything.”

"Mom.” The word came out as a choked sound. It was hardly comprehensible. "Mom, he's—" He couldn't say it. Even as the thought echoed through his mind incessantly, he couldn't _say_ it. 

"I know, sweetie. I know, but do you know what you have to do?" Her voice was calm. He knew she was holding back her own pain over the situation to get him through his, and he was more grateful for it than he could ever put into words. She was giving him the stability he so desperately needed. 

"It's _Takashi_ , mom. How can I—" The words were garbled. He was a mess. He was covered in snot and tears, and he felt disgusting, but he couldn’t stop any of it from happening. 

"Listen to me, Adam. You have to let it all out. Don't compartmentalize, not right now. You have to feel it all. It has to go through your system. In the morning, when it still hurts, you put yourself back together, and you go to work. Right now, though? You feel what you have to feel. There's no way around it." 

"I don't want to feel this. I don't want to feel like _this_." Adam didn’t know how he made the words out. He didn’t even know how his mother could have possibly understood them. He was crying so hard he could hardly sort through what was a thought and what was a spoken phrase. Had he even spoken aloud every word in those sentences? 

"I know. It sucks. It's a terrible thing, but you have the right to grieve. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, not outside people, and not yourself. You have the right to cry as much or as little over this as you want. Now, do you think you can stand up?" She was firm. She was making sure he knew there was no questioning her reasoning. 

Adam's thoughts were so clouded, though, that it took him a few seconds to process her question. His eyes focused first on the t-shirt in his hands before looking down at his legs. Objectively speaking, he knew they should be able to get him to his feet. Practically, though, he wasn't sure he could make them do anything at all. 

"I don't know." His words came out panicked. His hands were shaking again. Had they ever stopped shaking? It didn't matter. They were shaking now, and he didn't know if he could move from the couch. 

Her voice was coaxing; sweet and calm. "Try to, sweetheart. I want you to get into bed, hug a pillow to your chest, and cry as hard and for as long as you want or for as long as your body lets you. Okay? Can you do that?" 

The moment his mother's words worked through his sluggish thoughts, Adam realized that was exactly what he wanted. It was all he wanted. "Yeah, I can do that." 

Adam made it to his room slowly. His body was just barely following his commands, and he didn’t even know how that was happening. All that mattered, though, was that he made it from the living room couch to the bed. The mere sight of it made him break down into wracking sobs all over again. He was not sure if he ever hung up on his mother or if she eventually hung up on him, but when he curled up in bed the whole world disappeared. All that was left was the pillow he clung to and the crying sobs escaping him. He couldn't hear anything from the real world. He couldn't feel anything but the pillow and his own tears on his cheeks. In contrast, his mind was a wreck of sounds, thoughts, and images. It replayed every good and bad memory his subconscious could dig up. 

There was the first time Takashi and he hung out outside of school hours. Their first fight. Their first kiss. The first time they said _I love you_. The first time they tried to have a "mature" discussion that only spiraled into them both being angrier than they had been in the first place. The first time they had amazing sex instead of awkward if enthusiastic sex. The first time Shiro put the "good of the many" before Adam. The first time it felt like what they had could be serious. . .could be forever. Their last fight. 

Their last fight. 

Their last fight. 

It played over and over in his mind. He saw it so many times he couldn't tell anymore if he cried because of what he said or because of what Takashi said. It didn't matter. All that mattered were the tears and the pain and the agony of loss.

**\- - -**

Things were not looking good.

Months had gone by since the news stopped talking about the Kerberos mission, and Adam was spiraling. He put himself together to go to work, tucking his emotions into neat little boxes, and then he fell apart the moment he was back in the safety of his apartment. He didn't know how to get better. He didn't know how to get the gaping hole in his chest to sew itself shut. 

It was like living with an infected wound. He tried to treat it, to get it under control, but then he violently ripped out the bandages and stitches until the oozing bleeding mess was exposed all over again. He did it without thinking. One moment he was carefully tending to all which ached in his heart, and then he was shredding any scrap of progress he'd made. 

He wasn't sure what his life had turned into, but it was not what he wanted. It wasn't even close. Still, he couldn't find an escape from it all. He kept falling into the same pitch-black hole and crawling just the tiniest bit out only to fall again. 

It was bad. 

Bad enough that most of his evenings bled into each other. He couldn't distinguish one from the other. If suddenly asked what he'd had for dinner, he wouldn't have been able to recall what he'd eaten or if he'd eaten at all. All nights were a blur of a mug or two or three of chamomile tea, reviewing the newsfeed, eating or not eating, showering or not, and collapsing on the first surface his mind thought suitable enough. 

"Adam!" 

The voice sounded both far away and like it was incredibly close and obnoxiously loud. It made him suddenly aware of the cold water pelting onto his naked body. He blinked rapidly as the moisture made his lashes stick together. He felt the cool tile of the shower floor against his bare skin. He remembered what it was to actively breathe. 

As he gasped in a breath, as if he had not been breathing before, he heard his name being called again. "Adam! What are you doing?" 

There was someone stepping into the shower with him. They were a flurry of movement as they shut off the water in a rush and turned to face him. Only once they were face to face did his mind recognize who was in front of him. It was friend Theo. 

"What are you doing here?" His voice didn't sound like his own. He knew he'd spoken the words, but he couldn't recognize them fully as belonging to him. 

"It seems like I'm here saving your life," Theo quipped, placing a hand on Adam's bare shoulder. 

It was only then that Adam fully came to terms with the fact that he was stark naked in front of one of his oldest friends. He was shocked by the rush of mortification that suddenly overwhelmed him. "Get out of here! Get out!" 

"I'll be giving you your privacy, so you can get dressed, but I'm going to be on the other side of that door waiting for you. I won't let you kick me out until we talk," Theo reasoned calmly, like this was a normal conversation. Like he hadn't caught Adam sitting on his ass letting the shower water pummel into him without any semblance of wanting to actually clean himself. 

"Just _go_ ," Adam croaked. Theo didn't wait to be told again and made it out of the bathroom trailing water behind him. 

Once Adam was alone again, with his thoughts no longer spinning as they tried to make sense of Theo's presence, he made it out of the shower gingerly. He didn't rush as he dried his body and put on the same clothes he'd had on when he went to "shower" as there were no clean clothes in sight. When he opened the bathroom door, Theo stood exactly where he promised to be. He leaned against the wall that faced the bathroom, and his shoulders sagged when he caught sight of Adam. 

"Man, what are you doing?" Theo didn't ask what was wrong. He wasn't stupid enough to wonder at that. He knew exactly what was wrong, but he wasn’t stupid enough to not ask what the hell Adam was doing with his life. 

"I'm making tea. Do you want some?" Adam didn't feel ready for this conversation. He _needed_ it, but he wasn't sure he was capable of listening to and understanding the words necessary to have this conversation. 

He didn't wait for Theo's response. He simply moved in the direction of the kitchenette. With as little conscious thought as he'd exerted in all these months, he put some water to boil and looked for the tea sachets. He turned to face Theo when he sensed his approach. 

"I'm moving in with you, Adam. I already spoke to Iverson, and he agreed that it was a good idea for you to have a roommate again. It'll help you, and it will give us all some peace of mind. Fuck everyone else, it would give _me_ some peace of mind. I already lost one friend, Adam. I'm not losing you too." 

The string of words took Adam a few moments to process. When they clicked into place, the tea kettle was whistling as the water came to a boil. He chose to deal with that before his shock spiraled into a place he would not be able to come out of until hours later. He poured the water into two mugs. He set the tea to steep. He watched as the water grew darker and darker. 

"You want to be my roommate?" 

Theo reached for one of the mugs of tea. He tapped a finger against the ceramic mug even as it grew uncomfortably warm in his grip. "Yes. I think it'll be good for you. Is that okay?" 

Adam didn’t even have to think about his answer. He’d known Theo for nearly as long as he’d known Takashi. He was someone he trusted and someone who it would not be a bad idea to have around. "You're my friend, of course it's fine. I just don't know why you would do that for me or, I guess, for you as you put it." 

"Answer something for me, Adam." 

Adam picked up his own mug of tea. He didn't sweeten it before taking a sip. He wanted the strength of it before he met Theo's eyes. With a deep inhale of the calming scent of the tea, he focused on his friend. "What?" 

"Why haven't you gone to see a psychologist already? I know you know you need to. What's holding you back?" The frankness in Theo’s voice was unsurprising. He didn’t like to waste time. He always got to the point as quickly as it was polite to do so. 

"Accountability. There's nothing forcing me enough to do it. I function most days without having any negative impact on those around me or without physically harming myself. It feels like enough." 

Theo made sure their eyes met when he said, "It's not."

"I know." 

"Then let me help you." Theo's voice was sincere. Adam hadn’t been expecting anything else. 

What did it cost him to agree? Not much. Hardly anything at all. "Okay."

**\- - -**

The days and months and years kept passing by. They weren't all bad. They weren't all good. There were days where Theo actually got Adam to laugh and made him feel like his life could be put back together again. Then there were other days, days where he kissed another man or saw a promising flight cadet or anything really, and he made it back to his room and sobbed like it had been the first day without Takashi and not years after. He would have liked to say he was progressively getting better, but he didn't know if that was true. His therapist said he'd improved considerably, but the gaps of time where Adam felt like a normal human being again and when he felt like a heartbroken shell were so unpredictable he couldn't discern neither a pattern towards wellness nor towards something worse.

All Adam knew was that he was making it through. His students could no longer sense when something was wrong, when he was having one of the bad days, and that was a good thing. Neither his parents nor Theo had to pick up the pieces of his broken heart every day. No longer did he push away the rest of his colleagues and friends as he once had. Sticky intrusive thoughts of dying didn't haunt him as they used to. 

He was better, right? Right. He had to be. He had to move on. He had every right to, and he had no choice but to do so. 

"Adam, there's a package here for you!" Theo called from somewhere in the living room. 

The words came as a shock to Adam. He wasn't expecting any package, and his parents always warned him before they sent over anything. It made him uneasy. Warily, he poked his head out of his room. As he caught sight of Theo with the small square package in hand, Adam got the feeling that whatever was in it was dangerous. Not necessarily a danger to his body, but to his still fragile state of mind. 

Regardless of the feeling, Adam walked over to Theo and grabbed the box. When it was in his grasp, he grew more confused. The package was the size of a palm pad. It looked exactly like the type of box a new palm pad came in. Even more uneasy than he had been before he saw it, he opened it before he lost his nerve. 

As he'd predicted, a new palm pad was neatly nestled into the box. It wasn't anything fancy. There in his hand was the most basic palm pad in the market. Adam powered it on with a growing sense of trepidation. 

Theo leaned over his shoulder as the pad turned on. Instead of showing the familiar home screen all palm pads did, the device started playing a video the moment it powered up. 

It was a video of Commander Sam Holt. 

"Holt shit," Theo murmured at the same time Commander Holt said, "Hello, Adam." 

Adam's breath caught in his throat. All his thoughts wanted to rush to the surface in a flood of questions, but there was no time for them. Sam Holt was too busy speaking for Adam to sort through his own thoughts first. 

"Just as evidence of the day I filmed this, I'll have my wife hold up a current newsfeed with a recent and popular headline." A woman suddenly appeared by Holt’s side. She smiled nervously at the camera before placing into focus a palm pad with a headline Adam could recall reading recently. It had a time stamp of only a few days ago. 

"I'm contacting you and a few others before I go the Garrison with official news of all that has happened. I do not want to risk being ordered to withhold information from you or from the other people in as desperate need to know this as you are." The older man cleared his throat as if he was preparing to tell a long story. A story he wasn't sure Adam was ready to hear. 

"As you well know, Matt, Shiro, and myself left for the Kerberos mission quite some time ago. According to what I’ve learned, the Garrison reported us missing and eventually declared us dead for lack of any evidence proving otherwise. I need to tell you that none of us died during the Kerberos mission. There was no flight error nor accident. Shiro is alive and as well as anyone can be under the circumstances. He did not return to earth with me, but let me explain the reason why. I'll start with what really went wrong during the Kerberos mission. . ." 

Commander Holt told Adam everything he knew. He recounted every detail as well as he remembered it and explained whatever he had not been there to witness himself as clearly as he could. He told him about the aliens, and the war, and the paladins, and Voltron. He didn't leave anything out. . . But there was only one thing Adam truly heard. 

Takashi was alive. _He was alive._ He'd never died in the first place. 

"Before I finish this video, which has already gone on longer than I should have let it, I have to warn you that it took me some time to return to earth. It has been months since I've last been in contact with any of the paladins as the only device I have to contact them is a beacon calling for aid in case of a Galra attack. I cannot guarantee when or if any of them will be returning to earth. I cannot promise you that all or any of them will come back alive if they do return. I have to hope, as you will have to hope, that nothing fatal has befallen them in the time since I was last able to see them. I'm sorry I can't offer you a reunion. I hope that this knowledge, at least, is comfort enough. Goodbye, Adam."

With Commander Holt’s farewell, the video officially concluded, the device automatically shut itself off. Theo immediately ripped it out of Adam’s grasp and tried to power it back on but to no avail. After serving its purpose, the device had been programmed to never turn on again. 

"He's alive, Theo." Adam's voice cracked with the words. He could hardly believe them as he said them aloud. "He didn't die. He's—" 

The shock was finally settling in. Not the initial surprise of unexpected news, but the debilitating shock of having your life flipped on its head after working so hard to accept what had been your reality. 

"I need to make some tea." Adam said it, but only for the sake of grounding himself before his mind spiraled out of control. 

"Yeah. I'll help you," Theo muttered, looking like he was ready for a drink of something far stronger than tea. 

Together, the two moved around the kitchen looking for their respective weapons of choice. Adam boiled some water and prepared some tea. Theo looked for his hidden bottle of booze and a glass to pour it in. Silently, armed with their own forms of liquid courage, they sat down on the couch facing each other. 

Theo was staring at the amber contents of his glass. He did not look up as he asked, "What are you going to do? What does this mean for you?" 

Adam didn't think he had an answer to that question, but then it came as naturally as if it had been waiting there all along. "It means that if I ever lay eyes on Takashi Shirogane again, I'm holding on to him and never letting go. If he still wants me by his side, I'll work my ass off to make sure we never spend another day apart and hurt each other the way we did when we walked away from each other."

**\- - -**

Adam’s life had become a strange thing.

After the news Commander Holt gave him, Adam hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it all. The contents of the video kept coming back into his thoughts unexpectedly even after months had passed since the one and only time he’d seen it. The thought that resurfaced the most was the most obvious one: Takashi had made it out alive. He wasn't dead. There was a chance Adam would get to see him alive and breathing and in mostly one piece. This was exactly the kind of thing people called a gift and a curse. The knowledge Commander Holt had passed down to him taunted him with what he wanted the most while giving him no certifiable probability of it actually happening. 

It was like being stuck in purgatory. Fate hadn’t decided yet if he would get the worst-case scenario or the best-case scenario. If he thought about it, the worst-case scenario involved eventually getting news that Takashi had died during one of his Voltron missions and that by then Adam had moved on to someone else. It wasn’t such a bad thing, moving on, but Adam didn’t feel ready to give up on the best-case scenario yet because it was so irresistible. The idea of it stuck to the back of his thoughts like glue. If Shiro came back, not years and years down the line, but soon, he knew he would go with him. He would do whatever it took to rebuild their relationship until it was back on track, and he'd get to explore the _universe_ while he was at it. Just because Takashi had always been the one risking his life for the sake of a new discovery, it didn't mean Adam didn't want to explore the edges of the universe as much as he did. It just meant Adam had never been willing to die for the chance. Now? He was ready for some risks of his own but also ready to hold Shiro back from his own impulsiveness. 

The waiting. . . The uncertainty. . . Those were the truly difficult things to deal with because, ultimately, how could he predict the final outcome? He couldn't. It relied too much on hope. It scared him. It _terrified_ him. Already so many years had gone by. . . He didn't want to think about the time, but he couldn't help himself. What if Takashi did come back but he'd already found someone else? What if he didn't want anything at all to do with Adam? What if he didn’t come back soon enough and they were both so detached from each other by the time they met again that it was like seeing an old memory in the flesh and blood, familiar and happy, but ultimately in the past? 

All these questions were the reason why he'd promised not to wait in the first place. It had never been in his nature to sit and wait and guess. He didn't have the patience. It broke his heart too much. It made his thoughts go places that were not healthy or safe for his state of mind. 

Still, time had changed one thing. The waiting wasn't so bad. It still terrified him, but it didn't plague his thoughts every minute of every day. He was still functional. He felt more like himself now than he had in a long time. He finally had room to breathe. 

What time had not changed, though, was his after-work routine. After a long day of teaching unruly kids, the first thing Adam wanted when he stepped into his apartment was a cup of tea. 

As he set down his work bag somewhere on the couch, he moved quickly into the kitchen to prepare his tea. Just as he was taking out the tea sachet from his mug, there was a knock on the door. The sound made him frown. Theo couldn’t have invited anyone over because he’d told Adam earlier that he wouldn’t be in the apartment until later that evening, and if he _were_ at the door he wouldn’t knock. This was his place too. 

Adam decided to shrug it off. He grabbed his mug of tea and went over to open the door. He was taking a sip from the mug when the door slid open and revealed _him_ there. Adam didn't feel the mug slipping from his fingers. He didn't hear it as it crashed onto the floor and broke apart. His sole focus was on Takashi Shirogane standing in his doorway. 

It was him. Impossibly. Undeniably. It was him. It was also another person entirely. The changes were impossible to overlook. What Adam first noticed was that Takashi’s entire head of hair had turned a light shade of gray. His eyes then wandered from his hair to the scar across the bridge of his nose. Then he noticed the absence of the robotic alien limb he had been warned about. In its place was empty air. Adam was struck by how much older, broader, tired, and, most surprising of all, scared Shiro looked. He didn’t look like he was scared about whatever had brought him back to earth. He looked scared of _Adam_. 

There was no thought process involved in how Adam reacted. He was one moment staring dumbfounded at the man he'd spent what felt like ages hoping to see again, and then he was wrapping his arms around him in a fierce hug. It was with his arms wound tight around the other man that he realized that Takashi still smelled the same way he remembered. His scent, the one Adam had been trying to recreate in his mind for so long, immediately clicked into place as if it had never been forgotten. Adam nearly cried at the familiarity of it. 

When Takashi wrapped his own arm around Adam’s waist and dragged them both into the apartment, Adam felt the threat of tears more keenly than ever. He wasn’t sure what was keeping the tears at bay, but he was scared that if they started falling they would never stop. 

He stammered out the question before the tears came and clouded over his words. "What happened to you?" 

He felt Shiro draw away from him. It broke his heart to feel him pulling away, but he let him. He watched as a foot’s distance formed between them. He told himself not to pay attention to that. He reoriented his focus, instead, on Takashi’s face. At long last, it was right there within arm’s reach. It wasn't who knew how many miles away. It was right there in front of him. He could touch it, if he tried. He could hold it in his hands. 

The power of that, the truth of it, was overwhelming. It made his heart feel like it was being squeezed painfully in his chest. He realized he’d been kidding himself when he’d thought he’d been ready for this at all. 

"I thought that, by now, you wouldn't want to see me at all." 

Adam couldn't stop the laugh that left his lips. It wasn't a deliberate action as much as instinct kicking in. It was his body's natural response to what was to him a ridiculous notion, but which he knew was a perfectly rational fear for the other man. 

"Adam?" Shiro’s voice was so full of concern that Adam felt it in his heart like a stab wound, but he couldn't stop laughing. Even as his mind told him he should be crying, this was a moment to _cry_ of joy or relief or anger or whatever, all that left him was laughter. 

He was definitely going into shock. 

"Adam?" His voice was soft and kind. When he reached out to gently, hesitantly, cup Adam's cheek in his hand, Adam finally began to cry. The tears came in a rush. These were not shy reluctant tears that broke free timidly. No. They came out all at once. 

Adam pulled away from Takashi’s touch before it became overwhelming and kept him from doing anything but crying. He could see himself easily caving in to the flood of emotions swirling around inside him, and he couldn't do that. He couldn’t lose all semblance of control before he had answers. 

He walked towards the couch before he could change his mind about having moved away from Shiro. His instincts told him to draw his legs up to his chest and wrap his arms around them as he sat on the couch, but he knew he couldn’t do that. It would only lead him into a more comfortable position for crying. He had to remain calm. 

"What happened to you, Takashi? Your hair. . . Your _arm_? What the hell did you get yourself into?" 

Shiro laughed nervously. The way his eyes widened before the laugh made it out told Adam he hadn't meant to do so. "Would you believe me if I told you I actually died? _Really_ died." 

The words felt like a punch to the gut. Adam had to fight the way his body wanted to gasp in a breath. He shut his eyes tight to keep the new surge of emotions fighting to bubble to the surface under control. "Then how are you here?" 

Takashi said the words as if finally saying them out loud made him want to cry. "A clone body?" His voice was trembling. Adam could see the tears he was fighting to keep in check. "I should be explaining this in order, but it just felt important to say this isn't even my real body. But it's me in here, I'm no longer the clone. I'm just using his body, I guess." 

"You're a dumbass." The words were out of his mouth before he knew he'd thought them much less uttered them aloud. He saw the shock on Takashi's face as he registered what Adam said, and it only helped him realize he meant the words, and he wasn't going to stop with just those few choice words. "This is why you don't go on space adventures with your prodigy, Takashi. Who the hell was going to hold you back from your own dumbassery? Keith can't reason with you any more than you can reason with him." 

Adam knew the laugh that escaped Takashi was genuine. He could tell from the way his eyes crinkled at the corners and widened just a fraction before the sound was out. He could also tell that Shiro’s own words came as a surprise to him as he said them. "I missed you." 

"Good thing because then I'd be a dumbass too if you hadn't." It terrified him to say it, but that was no reason not to. There was too much at stake if they didn't talk about it. They didn't have to sort out all their shit in that very moment, Adam didn't think he was prepared for that, but he wanted to make sure Takashi knew he wanted to. . . At some point. 

Right now, though, he had to get this conversation back on track. "Tell me the full story from your perspective. What did you get yourself into all this time you've been away?" 

Takashi looked in the direction of the remains of what had once been Adam's tea. "Don't you want to clean that first?" 

"I will if you need the time to compose yourself, but I've waited long enough for this moment. I don't care about the mess if you're ready to talk." 

Shiro reached for one of Adam's hands. His skin felt warm and rough against his. Adam felt his heartbeat speed up at the contact. It felt like a promise. "I'm ready to talk. Are you sure you want to know, though? You're under no obligation to listen."

Adam tried not to sound exasperated, but it was a little hard not to. He knew why Shiro was giving him an out, a chance to walk away from this as unscathed as possible, but he didn’t want it. "And you're under no obligation to tell me. So, we're on the same page. You want to tell me, and I want to know." 

Takashi chuckled nervously, "I guess I'll start from the beginning then." 

The two of them sat there for a long time. It was not a short story, there were years of trauma to recount, and it did not flow easily out of Shiro. But Adam was patient, he sat there and listened and interrupted and waited for it all to be out in the open. With all the facts at hand, it felt like fiction. If Shiro had suddenly cried "I'm joking!" it would have made more sense than having the whole thing be true. Adam knew better, though, he knew it was all true. This had all happened to Takashi while he'd been gone. 

When he was sure there was no more to the story, Adam did the brave thing. The reckless thing. He broke the distance between him and the man he still loved even after all this time apart. He cupped Takashi's face in his hands and pressed his forehead against his. With his thumbs, he caught the tears that were falling down Takashi’s cheeks. "You really never learned to take care of yourself, did you? After all these years, you're still as reckless with your life as the day you left?" 

Adam thought he could hear his heartbeat in his ears when Takashi put his arm around him. The organ thundered in his chest when the other man murmured, "I left my impulse control behind the moment I chose to go on the Kerberos mission. I'd say I paid the price for that." 

Adam was going to shape a response to that, he really was, but then there was a loud bang against the apartment door. It sounded like a pile of bodies had slammed against it. Before either of them could move to unlock the door and see what could have caused the sound, the door opened seemingly by itself. 

As a single mass of limbs, a group of five teenagers stumbled into the room. 

“Who spilled the tea?” Was the first unexpected declaration. 

"I told you all to stay in the lions!" An unfamiliar female voice called out. 

"Adam!" This came as a chorus of three voices. 

A final, also unfamiliar voice, cried out. "The rumor come out: does Takashi Shirogane is gay?" 

Adam couldn't stop the laugh that escaped his throat. He didn't want to. "I leave you unsupervised for a few years and you come back with a troupe of kids? And you haven't even taught them the sanctity of privacy? I have my work cut out for me." 

"I believe in you," Takashi said with a bashful smile. 

With an utter disregard to whatever conversation both men had been having, Lance said, "I call dibs!"

"You can't call dibs, Lance. Shiro called dibs more than a decade ago." 

"Not romantic dibs, mullet. I call dibs on his affection and emotional support. You already have your own Gay Dad, Keith. None of you are taking Gay Space Dad Number Two from me." 

"It's official. We have our own set of Gays in Space. I think this bodes well for us. Don't you all agree?" The shortest one in the group said. 

"You'll do it? You'll come with us?" Keith asked, his voice steady but his eyes uncertain. Adam met that uncertainty with all the conviction he'd been keeping locked away for this very moment. 

"You don't have to answer—" Shiro tried to break in. 

Adam cut him off before he dug them both into a hole difficult to escape. "I made this decision a long time ago, Takashi. The question is, do you want me to go? Because I, for one, am not letting you walk away and go to unfamiliar parts of the galaxy on your own again without a fight." 

"Are you sure? This is war, Adam, not space exploration. There's risk involved. We might not come back alive." Takashi sounded serious.

But Adam was serious too. "Then I guess it’s a good thing I was the second best pilot in our year isn't it, Takashi? I can handle it. Can you?"

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t believe Adam and Shiro saved my life. By my life I mean they finally got me out of a writer’s block that had been going on for months. Please, feel free to scream about them to me over at [tumblr](http://misplacedstraightjacket.tumblr.com/ask).


End file.
